Culinary program presents: “Vegetables and Steak Knives: Intersections and Questions”
The Notre Dame Culinary Studies Program hosted a talk in late March entitled “Vegetables and Steak Knives: Intersections and Questions.” The talk was held in the Duncan Student Center amphitheater. The speaker, Smokey Stevens, is a “Vegan butcher, married bachelor, and maker of fine antiques.” Stevens holds a bachelor’s with double majors in unemployment and public nuisance from Stanford and a culinary arts degree from the Westwood Institute for the Criminally Insane.
Student attendees had mixed reactions to the talk. Some reported extreme concern for Mr. Stevens. For example, sociology junior Taylor Huxley was alarmed: “He seemed to have no grasp on what words mean, or even what reality is.”
Senior Joan Orwell is convinced the whole thing was a performance art piece. “I knew something was up the moment he walked on stage wearing an orange jumpsuit and had a large needle sticking out of his side,” she said. “Halfway through the talk, a bunch of orderlies ran into the amphitheater, shouted ‘There he is!’ and tried to inject him with something, but he fought them off with his butcher knife and went on lecturing about how cows are really carrots that don’t know it yet.”
Adam Douglas, a first-year PLS major, was more literary with his analysis: “It very much gave me the feeling of journeying with Alice through the looking glass. I found myself in a world where up was down, black was white, true was false, and Notre Dame’s surplus of deans worked to further the educational and religious missions of the university.”
On the other hand, for Dylan Verrükter, a doctoral student in the growing field of adulthood delayment, it was a religious experience: “I’m so excited to implement all of Smokey’s great ideas!” he exclaimed. “He told us all about his new decentralized project, carrot cake story hour! The awesome thing about it is that it shows newborn calves that they too can be whatever they want to be, as long as it’s a carrot.”
Mr. Stevens’ talk was not without some memorable quotes which the reader would be wise to ignore (frankly the reader would be wise to put down the paper and enjoy life while he or she still can, preferably next to the warm fire the reader kindles with the now-unused paper). Nevertheless, the hardworking sadists at the Rover have decided to print the quotes below for the moral corruption of the foolish readers who press on.
“There is this really shaky document called the recipe.”
“The word ‘butcher’ seems so far from People of Vegetation, somehow.”
“Grocery stores are really scary places!”
“For me, bacon is a type of vegetable. … The reason we don’t understand it this way is because it has become so disenfranchised.”
“Trans-fats are Fats.”
Eventually Mr. Stevens’ carotid artery, in a desperate bid to save humanity, cut blood to his brain in the hopes he would pass out and could be handed over to competent authorities. However, it appears Mr. Stevens’ brain was just as capable of functioning with hypoxia as it was regularly, and so the talk only ended when he became distracted by the images of happy cows which adorned the adjacent Chick-fil-A and began trying to convince the bovines in question to chop off their udders, paint themselves orange, and duct tape parsley to their heads.
Eventually Mr. Stevens left to find some real cows (while loudly insisting that there is nothing wrong with being a fake cow), allowing paramedics to swoop in and resuscitate the largely catatonic crowd. The university has promised free counseling for all those injured in the wake of the (oxy)moron. As for Smokey Stevens, it is widely hypothesized that he will be Biden’s next pick for the Secretary of The Fall of Western Civilization.
Dean Ham Cutler of the Culinary Studies Program called Stevens a “cutting-edge scholar” and has pledged to extend the talk into a series with multiple guests in an effort to “re-center those voices which feel marginalized by outdated concepts like the Principle of Non-Contradiction.” The next speaker, Fravely Buckingham, will give an address on April 31st in the 12th floor of Debartolo Hall on the topic of consent in animal husbandry. Free earplugs, blindfolds, and lethal injections will be given out at the door.
Mr. Grannis is a student of transitioning (from ignorance to wisdom). He cannot be reached for comment.
